On May 12, 2006, at 11:39 AM, Andrew Gray wrote:
At this point, we had the fuckup; someone mistakenly identified him as the suspect. It appears that no-one was actually able to compare him to photographs of the suspect, and was going on verbal descriptions; this part is unclear, because the security services refuse to say anything. But about the time he entered the station, the people on the scene had been told by their control room that he was the man they were after.
They followed him onto the train, there was some shouting, he apparently began moving towards him and they decided he was a threat. And then...
Yes, he was shot because he was mistaken for a Muslim sucide bomber. But he was not shot because the police saw him and thought "hey, a Muslim, open season!". He was not shot because of some grand policy that all Muslims were suicide bombers.
He was shot because the men in front of him had been *told* that he was a probable suicide bomber; they were jumpy, expecting him to try and do something. Then he, tragically, didn't know what was going on and acted in a way that caused them to jump too far.
Specifically, he was accosted by armed, plainclothes policemen and panicked. (When I see people wearing civilian clothes coming at me with guns, my first reaction wouldn't be "oh, they must be police!" either.) As I recall, he was tackled to the ground and shot in the head execution style. Any eyewitness would have no reason to believe that police were involved, and would conclude that some sort of awful US-style gang-related murder had taken place.
Police are brutes, counter-terrorism police especially so. In parts of the United States, it's worse--for instance, some police departments have a policy that SWAT teams must serve all search warrants. And let's not even get into our federalized airport security.
This paramilitary approach to law enforcement led directly to the deaths of two innocent people at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1993 (the survivor later winning a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government) while contributing to the tragic end of the Waco standoff that same year. (In contrast, the Montana Freemen standoff of 1996 was resolved successfully by non-paramilitary tactics used by the Montana Highway Patrol. Montana's constitution prohibits law enforcement teams--even federal law enforcement--from entering the state without the permission of the governor or state legislature, so in the Montana Freemen incident, the FBI instead assigned the Montana Highway Patrol to the standoff. It was resolved peacefully and the Montana Highway Patrol billed the FBI for costs later.)
My point is that the institutional culture of police departments became poisoned and needlessly violent as SWAT tactics became prevalent. (Ever notice that SWAT stands for "Special Weapons And Tactics"? The original idea was that acting like paramilitary thugs was necessary in special situations. If you do it all the time it's not so special!) This predates the "War on Terra" and will likely survive it. It's the result of a needlessly poisoned culture among policemen.